Postcards
Not hip to the lingo
Last month, the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) pulled ads from buses that appeared to suggest reading could be rewarded with oral sex. According to Reuters, the advertisements, placed by hip-hop clothing maker Akademiks, ran on 200 buses for several months and featured a woman kneeling among books with the slogan, “Read Books, Get Brain.” The expression, street slang for oral sex, was intended as a double-entendre by the advertiser, but MTA officials did not realize that before approving the ad. “To me, and I believe to everyone else, while it was done by a clothing line, it would give the impression that it was also promoting reading and literacy,” an MTA spokesman told Reuters. The company placed the same ads in Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco and Philadelphia.
Too much of a good thing
Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., officials banned additional art galleries from the city’s mile-long shopping district in October, claiming 120 galleries — one for every 34 residents — is more than enough. According to the Associated Press, the ban was instituted in part because the city cannot collect sales taxes on artwork shipped out of California.